- Who Are WordPress Leads and What Is Lead Generation
- How Much Does Lead Generation Cost?
- Approaches, and Tools to Use to Generate Leads on WordPress
- What Plugins to Install to Get the Best WordPress Leads
- 6 WordPress Leads Generation Ways That Are Always Working
- Conclusion
In the long-forgotten 90s sites were significantly different from those that we see now. It was enough to write a more or less adequate text, stick a hefty “Buy” button, and the system worked, sold everything to everyone. Now, to sell, you need to interest people with some goodies.
More and more businesses are moving online, competition in all niches is growing, so you need to stand out and attract attention.
It is necessary to implement from 5 to 8 touches, or even more to bring the user to the purchase. Therefore, mailing lists, social networks, contextual and targeted advertising are used. Marketers also got additional work – now they need to guide the user through the sales funnel, build the customer’s path, and provide the coolest experience at all stages.
Therefore, the term “quality lead” was born. In this article, we share tips on how to how to generate leads on your WordPress site.
Who Are WordPress Leads and What Is Lead Generation
A lead is a person who takes an interest in your product or service in one form or another. That is, you do not need to use cold calls and other similar methods to search for such people. They find you and leave you their contact information, being positively tuned for feedback.
WordPress lead generation is the process of getting contact information from such people. Then they go through the conversion funnel of the business and, if everything goes according to plan, they become solvent customers.
Compatibility with Various Types of Business
According to the opinions of certain experts, there are types of businesses where the use of lead generation is the most effective and profitable. Leads are created very actively in the tourism sector when you need to choose a tour or insurance when you need to choose and offer the best package. A person easily leaves his data, fills out an application for a desire to participate in training courses, certain programs, and courses.
Lead generation is called one of the effective methods in the environment of the financial sector if a potential client fills out an application for a deposit or loan. This is also the case if the client declares his desire to make a test drive at a car dealership.
Almost every service company (offering access to the Internet, as well as delivering goods using couriers and taxi services) works with people who have shown interest in its services. This is considered a certain kind of example of an ideal area in which lead generation is the main structure of e-commerce business projects. Today, every online shopper is considered a prospective lead.
The Most Important Question – How Much Does Lead Generation Cost?
This is one of the most important issues since the site owner must understand how much he must invest to start the lead generation process. However, there are no clear limits. It will all depend on what tools you will use, and how many channels of lead generation you will include in your strategy at the same time. But there is good news – lead generation can be almost free if you already have good content.
But if you do not have it, then it is necessary to invest in its creation. This is a long-term investment that will bring you money for a long time after it pays off. Therefore, review your financial strategy and analyze the possibility of either borrowing a little money on the Lendgenius website or getting this amount from the reserve fund.
WordPress Leads Generation – Approaches, and Tools to Use
There are a few basic ways of how to generate leads on your WordPress website. Fortunately, there is a special plugin for each method, and with some of these plugins, you can even solve several tasks at the same time.
WordPress Lead Generation Through Comments
If a person leaves a comment on your site, it means that he is already starting to experience interest. However, it’s not enough to use the standard WordPress form to turn a visitor into a lead. We suggest installing the Yoast Comment Hacks plugin. Once activated, visit the Settings »Comment Hacks page and click on the Comment Redirect tab.
Next, you can select the page to which your users will be redirected after leaving the first comment. You can optimize this page by adding an email subscription form, offering special discounts or something else that you want.
Add the Option to Subscribe to Comments in WordPress
To do this, we need the Subscribe to Comments Reloaded plugin. Unfortunately, WordPress does not allow users to receive notifications that they received a response to their comment, or that a new comment was posted by other users. The aforementioned plugin allows you to fix the situation. It will also help increase pageviews by improving visitor return rates. Your brand will become more recognizable. More importantly, you’ll get more options for converting such visitors to WordPress leads.
WordPress Lead Capture Form
The simplest solution is WPForms. This plugin allows you to create intuitive but effective forms in a few clicks.
This plugin already contains everything you need. It comes with five lead capture forms already built-in, each of which can be customized as you wish. But even without customization, they are already ready for use, as they contain opportunities for submitting applications, donations, and a subscription form.
Also, you are relieved of the need to create code – everything works according to the Drag and Drop functions. The settings are also quite simple. You can set where notifications from the forms are sent, which notifications will be indicated, and what type of confirmation the user will see after sending the form.
Integration is as simple as pie. After all the settings, you will receive an individual code that you will need to insert on the desired page.
Lead Generation via Pop-Up and Dynamic Subscription Forms
Convert Pro is the easiest and most effective plug-in for creating pop-ups for collecting contact information for visitors to your WordPress website. With this tool, you will get all the necessary set of functions out of the box. It is suitable for any type of business and target audience. In addition, you can use a cool selection of behavioral factors and set the pop-up window to display after a certain user action, for example, a long activity, or vice versa, inactivity, intention to leave the page, or when the user has read your material up to a certain point.
In addition, we believe that it is also important to look at the advantages and disadvantages of pop-ups before you make the final decision to integrate this lead generation method into your website.
Benefits
- Users already realized that they are a valuable resource for business, which means they can get something valuable for free, in exchange for their phone or email address. Thus, a pop-up window attracts attention and enhances interest.
- For the same reason, if the user receives something valuable at the first stage of interaction, this increases his chances of passing the client’s path. As a result, increased conversion.
- This is the fastest way to get contact details or feedback. As a rule, pop-up forms consist of no more than three lines, so the user does not consider it difficult to fill them out.
Disadvantages
- The site owner never knows which user is using pop-up blockers. Therefore, it is not possible to capture this part of the target audience, other methods are needed here.
- An incorrectly configured pop-up window only annoys and spoils the reputation of the company, so you need to be careful here. The same goes for intrusive design and content.
Therefore, we kindly recommend using the aforementioned plugin in this case. Pre-prepared and thought-out templates will not give you the opportunity to make a mistake with the design and content of the pop-up window. And intuitively simple settings allow you to be sure that this approach works, and not only annoys users, but increases also bounce rate and decreases traffic.
Pop-Ups When the User Intends to Leave the Page
Remember the following formula on how to generate leads:
OptinMonster subscription forms + email service = new leads
OptinMonster is a WordPress plugin with which you can create and post various forms of subscription on your website. But in this section we will focus on one of the most key functions – this is the ability to retain a visitor when he intends to leave your page. To realize this, you will receive a huge set of customized hold forms, with which you can offer the user to read other material, get a bonus for exchanging contact information, and also set your settings depending on the actions and duration of the user’s stay on your site.
In addition, you should know that effective lead generation is not possible without quality content. It is much easier to prevent the user from leaving initially than trying to stop him. “There is no such thing as a concentration. It all depends on the quality of what you read. ”
This is a quote from Jerry Seinfeld. And then he says that “a person’s attention is limitless if you constantly entertain him.” Yes, you can draw attention to something useless by picking, for example, a good headline. But you cannot keep the user’s attention for a long time. People tend to keep their attention on what really interests them.
Accordingly, your content should be not only useful but also interesting. Your style should include emotions in order to maintain attention. Everything else is secondary.
Boring things do not attract attention. Therefore, you need to put yourself in the place of your visitor. If you’re interested, all is well. If not, ask yourself “why?” And “what needs to be changed?”.
Increase Conversions with Full-Screen Subscription Forms
Master Popups is a great all-in-one solution to cope with this and other tasks. You can easily create a full-screen lead capture form with it and determine the parameter when the form will be activated. Such pop-up windows often contain a proposal to join a group in social networks, thanks for visiting the site, advertising a product or offering help if a person hasn’t found something, etc.
Get WordPress Leads Through Docked Panels
Everything is pretty simple and standard here: the form should be at the top of the page so that the site visitor needs just one look to see it, and does not have to scroll down the page. This rule applies to 99.9% of sites.
However, how to increase site conversion by placing the lead capture form at a non-standard position in the sidebar? You can test the position in the basement of the site, but it’s more efficient to immediately add a subscription offer at the end of the article. This option for placing a subscription form is considered one of the most successful. If a visitor has read all the material offered to him, then he is most likely interested in your topic. Therefore, it’s time to attempt to get his contact. In order not to insert the form code under the text of each article manually, you can install the New Adman plugin. Among its features is the addition of HTML code:
- before the content in each blog entry;
- in the middle of the content;
- at the very end of the article, after the main content is displayed;
- to the main page (before the very first entry).
And if you need to fix a text banner or lead capture form in a visible place, then the solution is the WPFront Notification Bar plugin. If the conversion growth tools described above for how to generate leads or lead magnets are already used, and something else is needed to convey to the audience, you can use the fixed block in the form of a static line at the top or bottom of the site.
Create and Use Lead Magnets in WordPress
To do this, you can use the Optin Monster which we mentioned earlier. A good lead magnet doesn’t need a lot of content. Ideal if the person received your lead magnet and quickly got some results. This will give you the trust of your WordPress leads and serve as a good reason to buy something from you.
The best option for a lead magnet is a description of one problem and one way to solve it. For example, in this article we consider one problem – WordPress leads generation. And the article itself is a creation instruction.
Best of all, if the problem is taken from real life, that is what your customers are constantly confronted with. Then the lead magnet will have real value.
Offer a Bonus in Exchange for a Subscription
As we said, people will be more likely to share their email addresses if you offer some value in return. This can be access to an e-book, video tutorials, a closed section, a checklist, instructions and more. No matter what you decide to offer, it is important to make sure that it meets the interests and needs of the target audience.
Distributing all sorts of useful and free information is a great opportunity to get more WordPress leads for your business. People are more likely to fill out forms on your landing pages if you show them how to do it profitably.
Give a Gift and Say Thanks for It
After the visitor has filled in the lead form, he needs to be thanked. Make a nice pop-up window with good text containing words of guarantee that the application has been sent or the order has been accepted, and also express gratitude for visiting your site and wish a good day. You can add a positive picture, a friendly smiley face, an attractive girl.
Adjust to Your Customers
The presence and convenience of a mobile page today is perhaps even more important than the traditional version. Therefore, be sure to make a mobile version of your page, paying close attention to the lead form, its beauty, and its convenience. Think for yourself, would you start to leave a request or order, or even just leave your mailing address, if it is impossible to do this from a mobile in a few clicks?
At the End: What to Install on Your Site?
Which plugin will be useful to you, and is it appropriate to use everything? First of all, it depends on what kind of conversion chains you want to implement on your website.
And for verification, you can answer several questions:
- What can your website visitor use as simple as possible?
- What plug-ins you (or with the help of a specialist) can install and disable at any time quickly and easily?
- How will they fit into the design of your site, will they visually not irritate?
- What will bring the maximum result to your project?
The last item on this list is the most important. Therefore, the next mandatory step will be the creation of goals in Google Analytics. And in the task plan, you need to include an analysis of site statistics for these goals. Thus, you can see what will work for you.
More WordPress Leads Generation Ways That Are Always Working
It is no secret that e-mail newsletters are one of the most effective and economical tools for successful marketing. This is a great way to retain customers and work with deferred sales. If a client visited your site and didn’t buy anything, but left you his e-mail address or subscribed to your newsletter, one day he will use your services or buy a product. If, of course, you will lead him correctly through your sales funnel.
Another important plus of the e-mail newsletter is that it is a very cheap two-way communication channel. With it, you can not only promote your goods and services but also manage your reputation quite successfully, which, ultimately, will positively affect the efficiency of your business as a whole.
If the creation of your website or blog was done on the WordPress platform, you can take full advantage of the e-mail newsletter by organizing it yourself. To organize an e-mail newsletter, you will need to update WordPress and install the necessary plugins.
Many free plugins help you organize your WordPress e-mail newsletters, such as WordPress plugins like subscribe2 and WP Responder Email Newsletter and Autoresponder Plugin. Still, the most suitable plugin is MailPress. By default, it has the most necessary set of functions that can be customized for the needs of almost any business. This WordPress plugin will allow you to take full advantage of the e-mail newsletter and generate WordPress leads, of course.
SEO
WordPress is loved by search engines: its features and content management capabilities are designed to make the search engine easier to crawl a site. SEO for WordPress is another story. The developers initially tailored the site to the features of SEO promotion. This platform allows you to use Permalinks, blog rolling, .htaccess and other tools or plug-ins for SEO optimization much more efficiently. The most effective for this purpose is Yoast WordPress SEO.
An important point: if you installed this plugin, this does not mean that you are guaranteed to go to the top in two weeks. No, this tool will help you with publishing content, creating new pages and checking whether you did everything correctly according to a thoughtful checklist.
Specifically, with its help you can:
- check if you have used the keyword for this page before (especially relevant for large projects that are already several years old);
- create an attractive snippet;
- set the desired page URL;
- check the text on the page: whether it has a suitable length, keyword density, the presence of alt to the pictures.
As with any other tool, using Yoast SEO, you need to turn on your head. Do not strive to get the “green light” to the detriment of the content of the text.
Content
Each of your customers is a unique person. And each of them has its desires and needs. Consumption of content is no exception, and this is an important argument in favor of creating it in several formats at once. This will help to reach different segments of the audience and on different devices as much as possible.
The fact is that a universal format does not exist by definition. And even if you like to watch videos, at some point it may be more convenient for you to work with the text. For example, in an office where there are no headphones and no time to watch videos, you just need to quickly scroll through the article. A similar situation is with social networks, which are very convenient to view in public transport on the way to work.
Here are some examples of content formats that can be used for lead generation:
- blog article
- material on an external resource,
- post for social networks,
- infographics
- video clip
- letter in the email newsletter,
- webinar
- PDF book, etc.
A Few Words About the Blog
This is an old way – we already know that blogging has a positive effect on lead generation. Despite this, not all companies have a content plan: many abandon it when they do not see the results for the first 2 months.
Remember! When you got traffic to your blog, your work is not over. Users began to read your materials, but they have not yet reached your contact list.
Show them what step they should take next – add a relevant call to action on the blog. A good strategy is to create targeted and most unique calls to action for each of your materials. If the reader is interested in some material, then there is a good chance that he will also be interested in receiving an e-book on a relevant topic, leaving an email address in return.
Guest Posting
A guest post is like a departure point. When a visitor to a certain resource read your guest material, it is still a potential lead. But he has already shown interest, and this is a good sign indicating that you have a chance to start interacting with him. Your task is to turn it from a potential lead into a real one. To do this, you need to include links to your project in the guest article in the most relevant way and make it so that the visitor wants to click on them. For example, you can place a link in a call to action or your biography. Further, after going to your site, all other lead generation mechanisms will begin to work, but you can be sure that you caught the lead exactly with the guest post.
Social Networks
We specifically decided not to stop on Facebook and Instagram in this article, because a lot of detailed instructions have already been written on how to work with these social networks. We’ll better tell you additional ways to get leads.
Differentiate Leads on Twitter Using Followerwonk
Twitter users are like fruit. Some are ripe and ready to use your product, while others need the care to mature. Contacting the latter is useless if you do not want to waste time. Followerwonk will help identify users who are not ready to become familiar with the product, filter the contact list and turn mature leads into new customers.
Answer Customers at Quora
This question and answer site has become very popular and can no longer be ignored. Quora allows you to create a profile with links to your website or landing page. Extensively answer user questions and then the leads will be guaranteed. Quora has a full-text search engine that filters out irrelevant topics and discussions.
Create a YouTube Channel
There is a lot of “wild” traffic on this platform, not only in entertainment topics. Many have already successfully used video channels on YouTube as the main source of lead generation for their business, but even more, do not even realize the prospects of this direction. It’s time to get in touch and get ahead of competitors.
The ideal genre for almost any topic is a training video. You can
- Show how to solve certain problems with the product that you offer,
- Share tips to help potential customers make the right choice,
- Explain in detail the features of using individual functions.
Optimize the About page
Go to the first business site that you have come across and find out what is written on their About page. Most likely, you will read a watery opus about a team of professionals, a dozen years in the market and a lot of experience. And also about the individual approach and other cliches.
So, all this does not work, but in the meantime, the About page can be another lead generation tool if you paid due attention to this. Tell clients not about yourself, but the benefits and obvious benefits to them. Break this page into several headings with descriptions of real value that you give and supplement each block with a relevant call to action, as well as place the most suitable form of subscription or exchange of contact information.
Main Findings
As you can see, there are many ways on how to generate leads and each of them has its advantages. And you need to understand that there is no universal solution that would give equally good returns in all areas. In one niche, e-mail marketing, and contextual advertising work well, in the other, social networks and working with content give the best effect.
Test your lead capture form regularly, adding or removing various fields, changing colors and text to find the most perfect high conversion mix. Do not be lazy to test and analyze – this is not only the path of “trial and error”, but also the key to success. The exact answer that best suits your case can only be obtained in practice.
Mónica Rodríguez is a writer, art historian, and editor at LendGenius. She specializes in Art History, Art Conservation, History, Literature, Finance, Tech, Wellness, and Travel. In her free time, she’s usually roaming the halls of the museum or the local bookstore surrounded by stacks of books.